1. INTRODUCTION
The team of undergraduate and postgraduate students, who
belong to the Department of Mechanical and Control
Engineering at Kyushu Institute of Technology, has developed
a small experimental rocket to participate in the rocket launch
campaign in France this July [1]. The rocket launches were
conducted in the military camp of La Courtine that is located in
the central region of France. This camp with an area of 6,300ha
was founded in 1901 for the shooting training of infantry corps.
This rocket launch campaign, which has been sponsored by
the French Association of Planet Sciences and supported by
CNES (the French Centre National DEtudes Spatiales), has a
long history since 1962 for promoting university students of
aerospace engineering and amateur space engineers by
providing safe launch opportunities [2].
What most distinctive, attractive and educational of this
campaign is that the teams who participate in the campaign do
not compete for ranking, but challenge new technologies by
performing their own missions. They can exchange knowledge
mutually by internet, and can receive advises concerning basic
technologies, design standards and interface document [3] from
many specialists of the Planet Science and CNES at any time.
Every year about 20 teams participate in the rocket launch
campaign not only from France, but also from other countries.
There were teams from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany and
Great Britain in the past. This year Space Club Gifu, Space
Club Kansai, and the team from Kyushu Institute of
Technology gathered in La Courtine from Japan.
2. EXPERIMENTAL ROCKET
The length of the experimental rocket is 2.0m with a mass
of 15kg, and is capable to reach an altitude of about 700m (Fig.
1). The body of the rocket consists of five structural sections. A
pitot tube, a beacon, a telemetry system and a power supply
battery for the NGC (Navigation, Guidance and Control)
system are mounted in the nose cone. Two microcomputers,
two video cameras and a power supply battery for the servo
actuators are mounted in the avionics bay. The parafoil
recovery system and the ejection/deployment mechanism are
installed in the development system bay. The solid rocket
motor is mounted in the engine bay. The extension tube is
designed to meet the margin of aerodynamic static stability
required by CNES.
this operation.
4. NAVIGATION, GUIDANCE
AND CONTROL SYSTEM
4.1 Avionics
The experimental rocket has an avionics that consists of
five electronic subsystems (Fig. 6)
Fig. 7 Microcomputer
(H8/3048ONE)
Fig. 8 GPS
(geko201)
48.3(W)99.1(H)24.4(H) mm
96g
Differential-ready, 12 parallel channel
Approx. 15 seconds (warm start)
Approx. 45 seconds (cold start)
Approx. 5 minutes (First
1/second, continuous
<15 meters RMS
1-5 meters with DGPS corrections
3 meters 95% typical with DGPS
corrections
0.1 knot RMS steady state
NMEA 0183, RTMC SC-104 and
RS-232 for PC interface
Built-In
5. GUIDANCE LAW
5.1 Dynamic model
The following simple directional equation of motion is
derived when paying attention that the centrifugal force
balances with the acceleration of directional displacement:
2
V
Y = 0
R
where
: directional displacement
: velocity
: turning radius
The disturbances in terms of directional displacement and
turning radius are defined as follows:
Y = Y0 + y
(2)
R = R0 + r
where
y
r
: disturbance of velocity
The perturbed equation of directional motion can be
reduced from Eq. (1) by employing the disturbances defined by
Eq. (2):
V2
Y0 + y = 0 =
R0 + r
assuming
Y
V0
R
(1)
V02
V02
r
1
R0
R0
r
R0 1 +
R
0
y << Y0 , r << R0
(3)
y =
V02
r
R02
(4)
r = Rl l
where
l
Rl
(5)
: stroke of riser
: turning radius coefficient
l = K + K
where
(6)
: directional angle
: angular velocity of directional angle
where
1
{ (k ) (k 1)}
T
(7)
T
k
: sampling period
: abbreviation of the discrete time kT
The amount of feedback stroke l in terms of the direction
angle
L0
: reference range
y +
V02 Rl
V02 Rl
K
y
+
LK y = 0
R02 L0
R02 L0
(9)
4. FLIGHT RESULT
(k ) =
where
can be calculated
y
L0
y
=
L0
(8)
There were two major different results from what had been
anticipated. The first one is the sink rate of gliding flight using
the parafoil recovery system. The anticipated sink rate was
about 6m/s. The second unexpected result was the landing
position, which is far from the target point than anticipated. It
can be concluded that the guidance was not performed form the
beginning of the parafoil gliding phase.
In order to look into the actual motion of the rocket after
deploying the parafoil, the photographs taken from the tracking
5. CONCLUSION
It is one of the unique challenges for university students to
recover the experimental rocket by parafoil recovery system.
There are many parafoil experiments led by industries,
government institutes or even university to research the
feasibility of applying this kind of recovery system to the space
REFERENCES
[1] Yonemoto, K., Sagara, S., Funatu, K., Yatoh, T., Nakamura,
T., Hiroki, Y., Fujie, S., Hoshino, M., The Student Rocket
of KIT Flies in the French Sky of the La Courtine, the 50th
Space Sciences and Technology Conference, Kitakyushu,
Japan, Nov. 2006.
[2] http://www.planete-sciences.org/espace
[3] Book of Specifications Single Stage Experimental
Rockets (Version 2.1), Plante Sciences/CNES (Centre
National DEtudes Spatiales), issued on 15th October, 2004.
[4] Les Propulseurs des Clubs Scientifiques Spatiaux
(Version 5), CNES (Centre National DEtudes Spatiales) /
ANSTJ, issued on Frbruary, 2002.
[5] Hoshino, M., Oshikata, Y., Kaji, S., Sagara, S., Yonemoto,
K., Evaluation of Flight Characteristics of Recovery
Parafoil By Free Flight Experiments, the 50 t h Space
Sciences and Technology Conference, Kitakyushu, Japan,
Nov. 2006.
[6] Fujie, S., Takafuji, H., Tsukinari, Y., Sagara, S., Yonemoto,
K., Development of Parafoil Deployment Mechanism for
Small Experimental Rocket Recovery, the 50 th Space
Sciences and Technology Conference, Kitakyushu, Japan,
Nov. 2006.
APPENDIX
Fig. A-2 Calculation flow chart of the microcomputer H8_2 (navigation, guidance and control law calculation)